ruinate
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈɹuːɪneɪt/
Verb

ruinate (ruinates, present participle ruinating; past and past participle ruinated)

  1. (transitive, now rare) To reduce to ruins; to destroy.
    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.viii:
      Towres, Cities, Kingdomes ye would ruinate, / In your auengement and dispiteous rage […].
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗:
      , New York Review of Books, 2001, p.51:
      […] as in lust, [animals] covet carnal copulation at set times, men always, ruinating thereby the health of their bodies.
  2. (intransitive) To fall; to tumble.
Adjective

ruinate (not comparable)

  1. Falling into ruin; decrepit.



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